A Sister's Testimonial

I was baptized into a well-meaning, but unable-to-deal-with-problems-very-well,
ecclesia. And I was a problem. I was 19 and the single mom
of a two-year-old daughter. I was never really a part of ecclesial
life. It seemed I was always being by-passed and/or misunderstood.
I recognized what was happening to me and requested a position teaching
Sunday School as I knew this would strengthen me in ways I could not receive
from those around me. I was granted my request but was shortly thereafter
removed from the post because a couple self-righteous individuals did
not want such a “bad example” teaching their children! That's when
my fall went straight down-hill. After a couple years of neglect,
coupled with down-right disdain in some instances (isolation within a
group is so much harder than geographical isolation), I simply could not
do it anymore. Life in the Truth with no moral support other than
“You're bad ... You're wrong ... You need to change ...” was more than
a young, lonely mother could stand. I left. For about 18 years!

Although I left physically, in my heart the Truth was always the Truth.
Eventually, though, the time came that life got so hard, my heart began
to harden. Thoughts like, “There is no God and I was a fool to believe.”
pummelled me daily. Then, one day it happened.

God hit me over the head with a sledge-hammer! Boy, did He get
my attention! It was like He was saying, “Oh yeah? I don't
exist? Watch this!” He put me though a terrible crisis and
pulled what was left of me out the other end. I do not want to know
what would have happened to me if I had not turned to Him with my whole
heart and begged and pleaded with Him. I turned to Him and He fixed
everything.

When the crisis began, that night I turned to Him. I started attending
meetings with a different ecclesia. I would not back down in my
determination to do things right this time. It took the better part
of a year to bring an end to the crisis and thereafter I requested refellowship.
I was heart-broken when I was turned down because someone took issue with
“appearances” of something kind I was doing for someone who had helped
cause the crisis in the first place. Again, I prayed and begged
and left the whole thing in God's hands. Two weeks later, the wonderful
man who is now my husband fell into my lap, so to speak. I was refellowshipped
with his help and we were married shortly thereafter. He was and
is truly my gift from God.

We now live in relative isolation geographically and still have some
hard-hearted people to associate with but we know we have God and each
other and there is no turning back.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if someone, anyone,
back then would have been able to help me with “growing up in the Truth”.
Would my husband and I be together now? Would my daughter have joined
God's family? But at the same time, I believe that for me, some
lessons had to come hard in order to strengthen me for what lies ahead.
He only knows. I just know that in young adulthood, I needed someone
to help me that just wasn't there and my faith was not strong enough to
weather the onslaught.